No power tools used - Bush Knife

Z

zachtateknives

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May 4, 2010
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I built this little bush knife from 3/32nd 15n20 steel. The handle is resin soaked black yarn. The blade is 5 inches long and no power tools were used. Special thanks to Christof at Koyote Knives for input on how to work with this steel. What do you guys think?

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Neat! I like the lines. Did you file the edge in, or use a stone?

Are there pins or something in the yarn to keep it indexed (although I kind of wonder if that's even necessary, as once that resin cures it doesn't go anywhere, does it?)?
 
I like it. And 15n20 is a wicked cutting steel.. especially at that thickness. And I find that profile to be one of my favorite backwoods designs. For a while there I was making a lot of bushcrafting knives (with a very similar profile) from that stuff... but most people just like the heft of a thicker blade. I, respectfully, do not agree. Great idea on the handle too.
 
To make sure that the handle wasn't going any where, I notched its base about 1/8th of an inch deeper into the tang then the rest of the tang. I then made a bunch of ridges so the yarn would cling to. And of course put it under pressure like I was making micarta, but its yarncarta! Colors and swirls, oh I think yarncarta is going to be awesome full destruction test next weekend.
 
And for the edge I started with a file and then went to a course stone, now that the handle is on I can go and sharpen with my finer stones.
 
This picture shows the tang goes all the way through. and a 5/32 lanyard hole, took about 5 minutes to drill with my little hand crank drill press.

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Destruction test.
The mild part of testing was splitting 3 bundles of firewood and all food prep for the weekend of camping, also cutting nylon and jute rope. Did just fine even with knots in the wood, no longer hair cutting sharp.
The medium part of testing was bending the blade. I put the blade tip in the vise,about one inch worth, and started pulling, got the handle almost to 90* before the tip broke.
The more abusive test, pounding through a red brick we had,that was too easy, blade seemed duller but still cutting.
Even more abuse, locked the blade in a vise, and using the biggest channel locks I had twisted the handle on the tang trying to cause seperation, I lost, couldnt get it to pop lose,after a fair amount of twisting, finally was able to get maybe a 1/4mm of movement. Having lost to the strength of yarncarta, clamped the handle in a vise and started to pound on it with a 24 ounce hammer. Was able to make the handle have a small cloud and finally blow out a small bit of resin material, completely fixable with some sanding and a recoat of resin. Overall, it seemed like the yarncarta was as good as any handle material on all the production knives I have owned, its stong, repairable, it looks good and able to easily make milllions of colors. Blade, needs to be a little harder, still adjusting my heat treat set up with my forge. I made another blade and am happy with its hardness, now I get to beat on that knife too.
peAce
zach@zachtateknives.com
 
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